Marvin X @ Muslim Reunion.AVI

Marvin X Defremery Park

Notes on the North American African Revolution

No matter the negrocities or contradictions, Islam gave North American Africans the possibilities of detoxing and recovering from our addiction to white supremacy. It was our original Black Studies not authorized by the white man's institutes of mis-education called universities. It gave us a necessary antidote to the toxin of white supremacy mythology. Elijah Muhmammad tricked the trick out of the tricked so-called Negro. The white supremacy institutions provided colonial elite intellectuals stuck in the muck and mire of white mythology or black mythology approved by the white masters. Rather than focusing on the black national needs of our community, there was a shift to pan-Africanism, as if the socalled Negro can solve Africa's problems when social/economic conditions are clear evidence he can't solve his own problems.

The recent snubbing of the African Union by NATO when the AU tried to mediate the crisis in Libya is clear evidence there is much work Africa must do for itself, and the socalled Negro has no role in the matter. Alas, where is the North American African revolution at this moment? As Sam Anderson noted some time ago, this is the first revolution in history led by senior citizens. For example, the events in Oakland this past weekend that celebrated Black Muslims in the Bay Area and the Celebration for Geronimo by Black Panthers were attended by mostly adults, not youth, the classical vanguard of revolution. Absent radical change that brings youth into the revolution, we shall see the elders making revolution in walkers and wheel chairs, meanwhile youth will be somewhere discussing hip hop, 5 percent issues and Moorish Science issues that are more or less esoteric and irrelevant.
--Marvin X,
Academy of da Corner
14th and Broadway
Oakland

Muslim Pioneer share Memories at Defermery Park Reunion

We are so thankful to Allah for blessing us to hear the testimony of a pioneer of Islam in the Bay Area, Sister Olivia Samaiyah Beyah, aka Sadie, one of the officials at Mosque #26 and later at Masjid Clara Muhammad on Bond Street in Oakland. When Malcolm X was sat down after the assassination of JFK, Queen Mother was at the home of Elijah Muhammad in Phoenix, Az.

Black Panthers Celebrate Transition of Geronimo Ji-Jaga

Black Panthers Celebrate Transition of Geronimo Ji-Jaga to Ancestors

On a beautiful, sunny day in the Bay, Oakland Black Panthers and community celebrated the transition of legendary Black Panther Minister of Defense, Geronimo Ji-Jaga who spent 27 years in prison on trumped up charges, fabricated by the FBI.

Speaker after speaker gave honor and praise to G, the soldier who said he was only following the order of his elders when he joined the US Army and learned the skills to return home to defend his community nationwide.

Because of the split in the Black Panther Party, Oakland Panthers would not testify that he was in Oakland at the time he allegedly murdered a woman on a Los Angeles tennis court. FBI intelligence records could have proven he was in Oakland as well.

No matter, on Sunday, Oakland Black Panthers paid tribute to the man equal in stature to South Africa's Nelson Mandela, especially as per time spent in prison for revolutionary activity. He shall forever be remembered for his contribution to the liberation of North American Africans.

Throughout the afternoon, speakers such as Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Rev. Freeman, David Johnson and Willie Sundiata Tate of the San Quentin Six, Ayana At-Thinin, Avotcja, Stu Hanlon (G's lawyer along with the late Johnny Cochran) and a host of others, praised our dearly beloved and departed brother who joined the ancestors in the Motherland where he finally settled, Tanzania, East Africa.

The event was organized by Black Panther chief archivist Billy X Jennings, but participants included the Black Panther Commemorator Newspaper, under the guidance of Melvin Dixon, Big Man, Jabari Shaw of the BSU of at Laney College, Brother Ustadi of the Afrikan Learning Center.
There were performances by Tarika Lewis, first female member of the BPP and Phavia Kujichagulia, griot of the first order. Percussionist Tacuma King also performed along with other too numerous to mention.

Toward the end of the evening, Billy X Jennings, the chief organizer, announced he had been saving the best for last and then introduced Marvin X, poet, playwright, activist, one of the founders of the Black Arts Movement, who attended Merritt College with Black Panther co-founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the man who introduced Eldridge Cleaver to the Black Panthers, along with Emory Douglas and Samuel Napier when they attended the Black House, the political/cultural center founded by Marvin X and Eldridge Cleaver in San Francisco, 1967.

Marvin took the mike along with two young lady poet/performers, Toya and Aries Jordan, sisters from the east coast who have joined his Academy of da Corner Reader's Theatre. Aries, under the mentorship of Marvin X, published her first collection of poetry. She electrified the audience at the Joyce Gordon Gallery during a Woman's History Month Celebration organized by Marvin X, who called together the most powerful African women in the Bay Area, Hunia Bradly, Rev. Mutima Imani, Ayodele Nzinga, Phavia Kujichagulia, Tureada Mikel, Jerri Lange, Talibah, who presented a poetic womanhood rites of passage. Aries performed a scene from the Vagina Monologue as well as her poetry.

Marvin X made opening remarks on Geronimo, saying he recalled two essential things about the brother. Firstly, that he was a soldier who practiced discipline, and this was necessary for the present generation of youth to acquire, that it ain't about any means necessary but the right means necessary to achieve victory. Secondly, G went into the US Army because his elders commanded him to do so, in order to learn the skills to defend his community.

Marvin X demanded youth follow their elders in the tradition of Geronimo. "As Sun Ra taught me, if you don't do the right thing, you can't go forward or backward, the Creator got things fixed so you are just stuck on stupid until you do the right thing."

Toya and Aries went to their respective mikes, Marvin X in the middle. They recited What If, a pantheistic poem about Allah as the All in All, Allah as everything, the dope fiend, the alcoholic, the tree, the river, the mama you hate, the father you hate, etc. The trio then recited a Marvin X classic For the Women, and then the women lead a recitation of a lessor known poem For the Men. Shortly after, the event ended. Power to the People!

Analysis: After being a participant/observer for the last two days at events at Defermery Park, the Muslim reunion of Saturday and the BPP celebration on Sunday, there is clearly a need for a once and month Speak Out for community. Speakers and spoken word arists are nice, but what is most important is for the people to speak out, to vent their trauma and unresolved grief. Nothing else is more important.

Muslim Elders Celebrate at West Oakland Park

Bay Area Black Muslim Honor Elders


West Oakland's historic Defermery Park, aka Bobby Hutton Park, was the site of a celebration of Black Muslims in the Bay Area, 1950-2011. It was a small gathering of mostly pioneers who were part of the Nation of Islam in the Bay from the late 50s to the early 70s. There were men and women who had been laborers and officials in the NOI.

Of course, after the transition of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in 1975, some of these soldiers, men and women, became Sunni Muslims under Elijah Muhammad's son, Imam Warithdin Muhammad. Others joined the NOI under Minister Farrakhan. Some were associated with Dr. Yusef Bey's Black Muslim Bakery.

They all came together yesterday for a celebration of their personal and communal struggle to lift the banner of Islam in the Bay. All pioneers over 65 received a beautiful certificate of appreciation that said the following:

To each is a goal to which Allah turns him; then strive together (as in a race) towards all that is good. Wheresoever ye are, Allah will bring you together. For Allah hath power over all things. S.2.,A.148

It is with the highest respect and the greatest appreciation for your "Service to Allah" that the Unity in the Community Committee offers this certificate as an indication of your contributions to our Deen and the Mission of Allah.

The event included free food, spoken word, prayers and testimonies. Imams and ministers addressed the gathering. The most poignant remarks came from the women soldiers who talked briefly of their role in building the Islamic nation in the Bay.

Future gatherings are planned so believers will have more time to share their testimonies. Some of those present included Imam Alamin, Imam Shuaib, Minister Keith Muhammad, Norman Brown, Sister Sadie, Fahizah Alim, Khalid Wajjib (one of the organizers), Abdul Sabry, Saadat Ahmed, Mikel Muhammad, Hasan Muhammad, Muhammad Ali, Rashidah, Marvin X, et al.

Accompanied by poet/actress Aries Jordan, Marvin X read poetry that was well received by the gathering. The author of thirty books stated in his remarks that he credits the Honorable Elijah Muhammad for his writing style. He is working on A History of Black Muslims in the Bay: 1954-2011.
Poet/actress Aries Jordan


Poet Marvin X
Today, Sunday, July 17, an even larger gathering is expected at Defermery Park when members of the Black Panther Party will gather to celebrate the life of Geronimo Ji-Jaga, Minister of Defense, who made his transition in Africa recently, after serving 27 years in prison on charges trumped up by the FBI in an attempt to disrupt and destroy the black liberation movement, including Muslims, Panthers, Civil Rights workers and other radicals fighting for social justice. The celebration for Geronimo begins at 2pm, Bobby Hutton Park, 18th and Adeline, West Oakland.
--Marvin X

All Praises are due Walter Turner and Greg Bridges of KPFA

We give all praises to Brothers Walter Turner and Greg Bridges of KPFA Radio, Berkeley, for last nights special program on the life and times of Black Panther revolutionaries Field Marshall Don Cox and Minister of Defense Geronimo Ji-Jaga. This program should/must be heard by all North American African youth and adults seeking a knowledge of true American history. The interviews with surviving Black Panther Party members was a riveting narrative on the revolutionary personality, what one must endure, suffer, the necessary discipline and love for the people.

Geronimo Ji-Jaga on the Elders

Africa Special - July 11, 2011 at 7:00pm | KPFA 94.1 FM Berkeley: Listener Sponsored Free Speech Radio

For me, perhaps the most important lesson learned was from Geronimo's unconditional love and forgiveness that he demonstrated throughout his life. Also, the essential role of elders in his life, how he and other brothers in his community honored, respected and followed their orders as per community. They did not question the wisdom of their elders, especially when it came to community defense.
--Marvin X

All Praises are due Walter Turner and Greg Bridges of KPFA

We give all praises to Brothers Walter Turner and Greg Bridges of KPFA Radio, Berkeley, for last nights special program on the life and times of Black Panther revolutionaries Field Marshall Don Cox and Minister of Defense Geronimo Ji-Jaga. This program should/must be heard by all North American African youth and adults seeking a knowledge of true American history. The interviews with surviving Black Panther Party members was a riveting narrative on the revolutionary personality, what one must endure, suffer, the necessary discipline and love for the people..

We were informed on the pain of exile, prison, capture, self education and family love. We heard from wives, children, and comrades, rom Minister of Culture Emory Douglas, Communications Secretary Kathleen Cleaver, Barbara Cox, widow of DC or Don Cox, BPP Field Marshall, Charlotte O'Neill, wife of BPP member Pete O'Neill, still exiled in Tanzania.

For me, perhaps the most important lesson learned was from Geronimo's unconditional love and forgiveness that he demonstrated throughout his life. Also, the essential role of elders in his life, how he and other brothers in his community honored, respected and followed their orders as per community. They did not question the wisdom of their elders, especially when it came to community defense.

Enough said. Listen to the tape and those in the Bay should be sure to find their way to Bobby Hutton Park (Defermery Park) on Sunday, July 17, 2pm. And don't forget the Unity and Reunion for all Bay Area Muslims, Saturday, July 16, 11am til 5pm, Bobby Hutton Park, 18th and Adeline, West Oakland.




We know there is no coincidence both these events are back to back. After all, many Muslims were Panthers and many Panthers were Muslims. Power to the People and As-Salaam-Alaikum!
--Marvin X

West Oakland's Lower Bottom Playaz Needs Your Support

West Oakland's Biggest Secret: The Lower Bottom Playaz

Our Story

The Lower Bottom Playaz, founded by Dramatist/Poet, Ayodele “WordSlanger” Nzinga, MA, MFA, are an ensemble of professional and novice multi-disciplined performers; the troupe exclusively performs work of social relevance and places value in community on a personal and universal level. Lauded for their ability to render reality in art, the troupe has been the life behind the foot lights in the Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater for 10 years, down in the heart of West Oakland at 10th and Peralta.

The Playaz motto is: “To make what we need from what we have been gifted.” Featured in the San Francisco 2008, 2009 and 2010 Theater Festival, and scheduled to perform in 2011, the troupe is a staple of Bay Area theater entertainment, that boast some of the finest talent in the Bay Area.According to Marvin X, "Ayodele Nzinga is simply the best actress in the Bay, not to mention her talents as poet, director and producer."

The troupe, commended by both Mayors Brown and Dellums, has been recognized and supported by the National Endowment of the Arts, Alameda County Arts Commission, Oakland Cultural Funding, Clorox Foundation, The East Bay Foundation, Theater Bay Area, and The Prescott Joseph Center For Community Enhancement.

"Community Theater at its most committed!--Ken Bullock-Berkley Planet

The Impact

We are raising funds to supplement our budget for production in 2011. We differ from many community theater troupes in that we pay performers. We realize the worth of the arts in community and the vital importance of having a space for established and emerging artists to practice their craft within community.

We offer art as an alternative form of expression thus attracting youth with talent but lacking opportunity. We provide opportunity to receive training free of charge and an art based income to our participants who in turn dedicate themselves to the service of their community through the creation of quality art.

We create work that illuminates quality of life issues and serve as a site of community engagement in these issues. In past we have produced work that has invited our community to consider cyclical violence, an expanded view of violence and poverty, the importance of conscious art, gendered roles, the industrial prison complex, gang involvement, HIV/AIDS, family relationships, gentrification and other hard hitting often neglected topics. We tell our stories the way we live them in the hope we can collectively find solutions and create the futures we desire and deserve.

Without this campaign it will be difficult to do the work we have before us for 2011. We will not be able to pay actors a fair wage, rent costumes, or market successfully without additional funding. This potentially means a dark theater. It will mean we cannot provide work for our actors. It means one less outlet for community. Sadly it leaves one less way for us to come together as a community to consider how to live better. Regretfully it forces us as artist to leave our community and create elsewhere because we have to eat. End result; less positive and uplifting art for us to consume. We all benefit from your contribution to this campaign.



What We Need & What You Get

We need money for actors, costumes, and marketing.

We also need in kind services. The free use of equipment, graphic services, use of props or costumes, reproduction services, filming, photography, make-up, and marketing assistance are all types of in kind donations we would be extremely grateful for. We would also gladly accept some other offer that you envision as helpful that we have not imagined here.

August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean will open on August 19, 2011 at 7:30 PM. We appreciate any size contribution. We encourage you to take advantage of the wonderful perks we have put together to make giving feel even better!

Poet Returns Home, Apartheid in Oakland

Poet/Playwright Returns Home to West Oakland, Speaks at Black Dot Cafe

On Saturday, November 20, Marvin X. Jackmon, poet/playwright/essayist/producer/organizer/teacher, returned to his childhood neighborhood in West Oakland where he attended Prescott elementary and Lowell junior high school.

On Saturday afternoon he had a conversation with actors in the Lower Bottom Playaz who have been performing his first play Flowers for the Trashman, 1965, San Francisco State University Drama Department production while he was an undergrad.

He told the young actors he was flunking an English literature class taught by legendary Medievalist professor/author John Gardner. Gardner asked him what he wanted to do pass the class. The poet said write. The professor said write what. Write a play. Gardner said write it! Flowers for the Trashman was the product. The play became a classic of the Black Arts Movement and established Marvin X as one of founders of the most radical movement in American literature. BAM forced America to include ethnic and gender literature in the academic curriculum. See the Black Arts Movement by James Smithurst, University of North Carolina Press.

The poet described his childhood in West Oakland, Harlem of the West. While I was growing up, West Oakland was the Harlem of the West. I grew up on 7th and Campbell, in my parents florist shop. West Oakland was booming with a vital economic and cultural community on 7th Street, with shops, restaurants, cafes, clubs, associations. It was the end of the railroad line, home of the first black union, the Pullman Porters, led by C. L. Dellums, uncle of Oakland's Mayor Ronald Dellums.

My mother and father were Race people, the name accorded to those who had racial consciousness in the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. They were activists in many social organizations, especially the NAACP. Before the family moved to Oakland, his parents edited the Fresno Voice, the first black newspaper in the Central Valley. His maternal great grandfather, E. Murrill, was mentioned in 1943 edition of the Fresno Bee Newspaper. He was so well known the newspaper noted that whites and blacks attended his funeral. His maternal relatives were pioneers to the West coast.

After the war, his parents left Fresno and came to Oakland. There my parents opened a florist shop while my mother worked at the Navy Supply Center as a clerk. The Army base at the end of 7th Street employed many blacks who migrated to the Bay Area during WWII. Seventh Street was bumper to bumper cars, especially on the weekends. The street was crowded with people enjoying Negro life and culture. See Marvin's autobiography Somethin' Proper, Black Bird Press, 1998.

The poet told of his introduction to drama at New Century Recreation Center on 5th Street at McFeely School where he attended elementary school. He recalled a dance teacher at New Century was Ruth Beckford, queen of African choreography in the Bay Area. She was one of the most beautiful women of my childhood with her short natural hair, African body and black velvet skin. I adored her whenever I could catch a glance of her. So fine, so fine.

While doing a play at children's play at Mosswood Park, the poet said he was in the sandbox when a little white girl called him a nigger for the first time and told him to get out of the sandbox. In those days, we didn't go to Mosswood Park often and definitely did go to Lake Merritt, only on holidays such as the 4th of July. A nigguh would get his ass kicked by white boys if caught at Lake Merritt.

Pine Street, where the Black Dot Cafe is located, was the ho stroll, from 7th to 16th by the Southern Pacific train station. There was a hotel near the train station where you could rent a room for a few minutes. Although the area where Black Dot is located is gentrified, someone in the audience informed the poet the hotel is still there.

As a child, the poet used to play up and down the streets in the vicinity of Black Dot Cafe, and later he used to sell black newspapers and magazines in the area, including Jet, Ebony, Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Currier, Detroit Black Dispatch, et al. As a child, he also wrote in the Children's Section of the Oakland Tribune.

As per the play, the setting is a jail cell with the lead character the poet as a young college student with his ghetto friend. They had an encounter with the police coming from a dance and end up in jail for failing the tone test with the police. In jail, the story evolves into a narrative of the father/son relationship, although most critics focus on the rage expressed by Joe, the militant college student who goes off on the white man in the cell. This rage made it a classic of the Black Arts Movement nationwide and worldwide. The play was produced in Europe as well. It appeared in Black Dialogue Magazine and the 60s classic anthology Black Fire, edited by Larry Neal and Amiri Baraka.

In conversation with the actors, they told the poet how the play affected them as fatherless young men, suffering the estrangement and abandonment by their fathers. For them, the play was/is a play within a play, thus giving a level of consciousness as they performed the ritual and were transformed by it. The poet told them this is the purpose of drama, to transform.

He said on one level, the drama reveals his failure as a father since when it was written he had fathered two sons by the age of twenty-one. The play ends with his lines "I want to talk with my sons. I want to talk with my sons." The poet noted that he had been able to talk with one of his two sons, but not with the other who is now almost 50 years old. This son still has feelings of abandonment and neglect. The poet told the young men and women we must break the cycle of such trauma. Otherwise it shall go on forever. Such is the purpose of Flowers for the Trashman, a man-hood training ritual drama to transform lives.

He spoke on the function of ritual drama to transform. This play Flowers for the Trashman is a manhood training ritual so that young men are changed by witnessing it. They will get over some of their hatred and trauma with fathers, for soon they shall be fathers and how shall they behave? Shall their sons hate them, shall they hate their sons, when shall it end?

Truth is, we were not brought over here to have healthy relationships, father/son, mother/daughter. We were brought here for our labor, to be slaves and later wage slaves, coming down to the present. In a 1968 interview with the poet, James Baldwin told him, "For a black father to raise a black son is a miracle. And I applaud the men who are able to do this. It's a wonder we all haven't gone stark raving mad!"

--Marvin X
11/20/10


Happy Thanksgiving: Apartheid in Oakland


It began long ago with Negro Removal or Urban Renewal, the destruction of the economic and cultural vitality of the North American African community. At least San Francisco's Mayor Joe Alioto apologized for destroying the Fillmore. But many blacks were involved because they were part of the Redevelopment Agencies, thus they made decisions detrimental to our cultural vitality. Call it apartheid in black face!

The Fillmore is a graveyard compared to its former designation as the Harlem of the West. West Oakland the same. Of course, before we get to today's apartheid or more precisely, ethnic cleansing, aka, gentrification, we must recall how the Crack epidemic or pandemic destroyed communities coast to coast and throughout Pan Africa, from Jamaica to the Motherland. The Crack germ/chemical warfare destroyed people as well as property after the Crack addicts stopped paying rent or mortgages , leading to lost of property, deterioration of mental and physical health, including those infected from STDs and HIV/AIDS.

In many cases property was sold for little or nothing to the dope man. Many children who inherited property sold it for Crack, although Crack was inter-generational, grandparents and parents succumbed to the US Government supplied drug. In some cases great grandparents were addicted. Of course violence aided the destruction of community when rival gangs fought for turf.

President Reagan allowed the Contras in Nicaragua to bring cocaine into America to aid them in the fight against the Sandinistas. With money from cocaine, the Contras bought weapons.

In Oakland during the reign of black mayors, beginning with Lionel Wilson, then Elihu Harris, the reconstruction or development of the hood was ignored for downtown development. And then came Gov. Moonbeam, Jerry Brown as mayor. He expanded downtown development at the expense of the hood, although West Oakland was the exception since he told the neo-colonial yuppies and buppies that West Oakland is closer to San Francisco than San Francisco. Yes, the West Oakland BART train ride to San Francisco's financial district is less than ten minutes. This created a rush for West Oakland property, and by hook or crook, the neighborhood was further destroyed, although new housing and reconstructed housing boomed. Most of the blacks had long gone from the area due to redlining, Crack and violence. As we see with Fillmore, West Oakland and elsewhere, buildings and houses do not give birth to culture, but rather people who have traditions and shared culture. Capitalism cares nothing about tradition or culture, except as it relates to global finance that we see is in its final stages.

The sub prime loan scam put the death nail in the West Oakland community, also East Oakland, as it has done nation wide and worldwide. But finally, blacks and poor are being excluded, ethnically cleansed, from Oakland entirely by rental costs that price them out of the market, even when they may have Section 8 or subsidized housing, for they are required to have income from employment that excludes them. We may say it is not racial but class since poor persons of any ethnic group will find rental housing almost impossible to obtain with the income restrictions.

Apartheid is thus in full swing. Not only are blacks and other poor being pushed out of San Francisco but Oakland as well, heading to Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, Madera and Fresno.
We wonder what shall they do in these cities where there is high unemployment and massive forecloses.

Apartheid shall continue its run unless there is an emergency jobs and housing program that is focused on the poor, which seems very unlikely unless Oakland's new mayor Jean Quan has some revolutionary ideas, certainly our President seldom mentions jobs and housing for the poor, except for terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. Enjoy your turkey--don't be a turkey!

--Marvin X

West Oakland Celebration for Transition of Geronimo Ji-Jaga

West Oakland Site of Bay Area Muslim Reunion

Unity in the Community

Muslim Unity Meeting and Reunion: 1950-2011

Saturday, July 16, 11-5:00

Defermery (aka Bobby Hutton ) Park

18th and Adeline Street

West Oakland

information: Khalid 510-927-5055

Black History, Oakland's Shame

BLACK HISTORY-- OAKLAND’S SHAME

Part One

The purpose of history is to give people a memory of their past in order that they may endure the present and propel themselves into the future. When they are disconnected from their myths and history, the present can be chaotic and the future problematic.

Such is the present condition Oakland’s citizens: they have allowed their grass roots heroes and sheroes to languish in obscurity and infamy. Oakland heroes from the 1960s, namely radicals such as the Black Panthers have no streets named after them for their valiant struggle against oppression. There are no statues or other monuments to the Black Panther leadership or the thousands of rank and file grass roots people who sacrificed their sweat and blood to make Oakland and America a better place. There’s a Federal building named after Ron Dellums, a state building named after Elihu Harris, a psychiatric hospital named after John George, but nothing to honor the common people who fought in the streets of Oakland and across America to make this nation live up to constitution, by creating a society of , for and by the people.

There are no statues of Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Hutton, Panther leaders who have joined the ancestors. What is the excuse for not officially naming Defermery Park after Little Bobby Hutton, the 16 year old youth murdered by the Oakland Police in a shootout after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Little Bobby was the third member of the BPP and its secretary.

Today he should be an example much needed by youth to show them the path to freedom rather than the rode to self destruction they are presently following. After three black mayors, there is yet no official name change of the West Oakland park where so many Panthers and other radicals grew up on the basketball courts and picnic grounds.

As one who grew up in West Oakland and familiar with Oakland’s radical tradition, I am embarrassed when people ask me where are the monuments to the great radicals Oakland produced, especially during the 60s. People from out of town who visit Oakland are dumbfounded that they cannot visit any sites where Black Panthers and other radicals are honored.

Oakland’s old Merritt College on Grove or MLK street, was the hotbed of radical Oakland during the early 60s. It is where I attended college and obtained my radical education, not in the classroom, but on the steps at the main entrance, listening to young radicals such as Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Richard Thorne, Ernie Allen, Isaac Moore, Ann Williams, Ken and Carol Freedom, Donald Warden, Maurice Dawson.

With all due respect to Martin Luther King, the site should not have been named in honor of MLK but to those Oakland radicals who helped change America and the world from the hallowed steps at the front of the college. The world should know that Oakland’s 60s revolution was spearheaded by students who would extend their struggle for freedom to UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University, which had the longest and most violent student strike in American history. And many of the students at SFSU had transferred from Merritt College, taking their desire for equal education, including black studies, across the bay and eventually across America when the call for black studies became a priority of the freedom struggle. Well, Merritt College, now located up in the Oakland hills, far from the flatlands and the population who made the college historic, has belatedly named a room after its most controversial student, Dr. Huey P. Newton.

But the real significance of the BPP is that they gave a voice to the voiceless masses of youth and adults suffering oppression in Oakland, the US and the world. And these brothers and sisters must be honored for their sweat, blood and tears on the streets of this city. The tragic shame is that today’s youth have little or no knowledge of what happened in Oakland, for there are no monuments at 14th and Broadway or anywhere to remind them of their roots, of the struggle and sacrifice of their parents and grandparents.


--Dr. M
1/30/08

Black History—Oakland’s Shame

Part Two

We call upon Mayor Ron Dellums, himself a part of Oakland’s radical history, to make it a priority of his tenure to establish monuments to Oakland’s Black Radical Past. If streets can be named after African and European radicals, how long will local heroes be neglected, especially when youth need knowledge and symbols of progressive social activists so they can see there are alternative lifestyles other than the self destructive American gansta genre of psycho-socialpaths.

And more important than symbolic gestures, we call upon the mayor and city council, in coordination with other Bay Area governments, to establish a special fund to award and reward the still surviving freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives, educations, jobs, and families to make a better world for Bay Area citizens in particular and Americans in general.

After all, these liberation fighters in the Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, Black Student Unions and other social activist organizations, suffered the blows of fascist America. These valiant men and women endured police surveillance, family intimidation, jail, prison, torture, murder, exile, black listing and other forms of obstruction in the battles they waged to make things better for all Americans. They are thus entitled to just compensation as are veterans from any war, for their battle was in fact the Second Civil War, far more important than the racist war in Vietnam and the present unprovoked war in Iraq.

One result of the Black Panther Party was the US government’s adoption of their free breakfast program for all children. Black Student Union members fought for diversity in education, and with the establishment of Black Studies, it was soon followed by Asian Studies, Native American Studies, Chicano Studies, Gender Studies, and American academia was forever changed for the better, for the racist Eurocentric education suffered a death blow.

Let us not fail to acknowledge and reward the cultural workers who established the West coast arm of the Black Arts Movement or BAM, which revolutionized the esthetics of the arts, replacing the art for art sake of the European paradigm with a functional approach that stated art is indeed didactic, i.e., for education and elevation of consciousness, not merely for entertainment. Cultural workers such as Ed Bullins, Marvin X, Danny Glover, Jimmy Garrett, Vonetta McGee, Sarah Webster Fabio, Adam David Miller, Ntozake Shange, Reginald Lockett, Avotjca, and others, raised the standard of the black arts that had been initiated by the Harlem Renaissance, but BAM was more political and directed to the masses rather than to the whites seeking exotica and erotica.

It was a revolutionary artistic movement, working in tandem with the political liberation movement. Not only was BAM the sister of the Black Power movement, but in a very real since, it was the mother since many of the politicos were nurtured in the womb of BAM, then advanced to the political revolution. We think of Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton, Benny Stewart, George Murray, Emory Douglass, Samuel Napier and others who came through BAM.

And finally, BAM, by the very nature of the literature, forced inclusion of its material in academia, thus upsetting the status quo, altering it forever when ethnic literature was forced into the Eurocentric curriculum. Other ethnic groups followed suit with demands their literature become apart of the general curriculum. The Asian poet Janice Mirikini (wife of Rev. Cecil Williams of Glide Church) will tell people, “It was the poetry of Marvin X that awakened me to my ethnicity.” So yes, BAM awakened other ethnicities to the power of their indigenous literature and artistic expression, freeing them of Eurocentric domination or white supremacy/lunacy.

Unfortunately, opportunists took advantage of the situation created by the liberation fighters to simply obtain tenure, thus the original mission was aborted with the resultant disintegration of community. If black consciousness had been properly spread to the community, there would be children today carrying on the tradition rather than engaged in self destructive behavior. The present situation is indeed a shame, but perhaps if the veteran liberation fighters are honored, it will inspire the children of today to engage in the protracted struggle to liberate themselves from the last vestiges of white supremacy/lunacy.

--Dr. M
1/30/08

Marvin X. Jackmon (Dr. M) grew up in West Oakland on Seventh and Campbell, the son of a florist, Owendell Jackmon I, who had published the first black newspaper in the central valley, The Fresno Voice. Dr. M’s first writings were published in the children’s section of the Oakland Tribune. His latest book HOW TO RECOVER FROM THE ADDICTION TO WHITE SUPREMACY is now a textbook at Berkeley City College and Oakland’s Merritt College. To order your copy, send $19.95 to Black Bird Press, POB 1317, Paradise CA 95967. Invite Dr. M to speak at your church, mosque, college, organization. For booking information or information on the next meeting of his Pan African Mental Health Peer Group to recover from the addiction to white supremacy/lunacy,jmarvinx@yahoo.com.

Ed Howard on the Slave System

Ed Howard on White Supremacy Type II and the American Slave System
I have spent my whole adult life creating jobs, opportunities and positive experiences for Black people. Just ask anyone who is old enough and lived in Oakland, California back in the day, “who were the people responsible for making Oakland’s Black people known across this country and the world for breaking down the Slavery System?”

There is no FAKE in my game, just being REAL I have lived a life to prove it.

To you that have not signed up, you would rather talk about your experiences of being too dark, too light, your hair textures, etc. instead of being positive about brothers/sisters creating businesses, jobs, products/services, earn money, bringing us together, cooperation, distributors, manufacturers, builders and computer technology for Black people that will help break down the Slave System. That’s what the Slavery System does to your mind. It makes you want to talk and do the things that will make you feel bad and almost do nothing about the things that will build you up.

I have asked you to take only five minutes of your time to sign up using the Black Business Network link below so that you can see, hear and be informed about what these positive brothers/sisters – Delzino and Deborah Wilson de Briano of Black Business Network; Fred Lemonds of (G-Webmarketing) http://www.g-webmarketing.com/websiteseo - and myself http://www.kakakiki.com have created to help break down the Slavery System. Only the Black mind that is controlled by the Slave System would go against being part of this building process.

Don’t you see the world is changing black people? Everyone is using us and some of us will not take five minutes of your time to sign up so we can keep you posted to see, hear, take part and be informed about Black people working for our interest?

You know it’s the right thing to do, SIGN UP NOW! Click on this link to join. http://www.blackbusinessnetwork.com/edhoward

Much Respect
Ed Howard, President
Kakakiki Inc.

P.S. I am speaking especially to you who know me and have not signed up. We must drop the Slavery System mindset of envy, jealously, I don’t like him or her, who do they think they are, you just don’t feel right working with Black people or I don’t want no one telling me

West Oakland Renaissance Committee Elders Council

West Oakland products:
Paul Cobb and Marvin X

photo Walter Riley, Esq.

West Oakland Product Ed Howard, Engineer and Businessman




West Oakland Renaissance Committee Elders Council



For several months a group of West Oakland concerned elders have been meeting the first Thursday of the month at the Post Newspaper conference room to consider critical issues in their childhood neighborhood of West Oakland. Members of the group include Joe Johnson, Leonard Gardner, Paul Cobb, Maxine Ussery, Francis Brown, Dr. Larry Moore, Ed Howard and Marvin X.

The group's concerns include Defermery Park (aka, Bobby Hutton Park), the possible closing of the African American Museum/Library, gentrification and the ethnic cleansing of West Oakland. They recently attended a meeting in which thousands of dollars were being doled out to mostly white residents and businesses. After the group's support, a black resident was able to win a grant.

The West Oakland Renaissance Committee/Elders Council is seeking involvement of more senior citizens who may have time to mentor youth and advocate for senior issues such as the possible closing of the Senior Center at 18th and Adeline.

Seniors who desire to become computer literate should contact the group. There is a program that gives free computers to seniors and Oakland school children.

The Elders Council is based on the ideas of the late John Douimbia, founder of the Black Men's Conference that was formed after a meeting of over one thousand black men at the Oakland Audioirium, 1981. Marvin X was co-planner of the BMC and has written an Abstract for the Elders Council.

In a conversation with a Laney College BSU member, Marvin X called for Black Panther Party elders, Muslims, Christians, Marxists and other senior activists to form the Elder's Council to address community issues, especially problems of street and partner violence.

Why not set up an 800 number that people can call for conflict resolution, rather than call 911 or resort to senseless violence. The council is thus an alternative to the criminal justice system. It is about community justice and conflict resolution.

Let the elders meet to reconcile critical matters in the community. Youth should be able to call upon the Elder's Council for advice and wisdom. Elder Terry Collins, a strike leader from San Francisco State University, noted that every elder should be assigned five youth to mentor and they should accompany elders in their daily round.

If elders made their presence felt on the street it would cause a decrease in violence, but too many elders are afraid of their own children so they say nothing for fear youth will disrespect them or abuse them.

We must cast away our fears and help our children. A youth passed Marvin X at his outdoor classroom downtown Oakland. "His pants were sagging and I started to say something to him, but he apparently read my mind because before I could say anything he pulled up his pants and continued down the street. Sometimes it only takes a thought!"

We urge elders from West Oakland or the wider community to join this group which meets every first Thursday of the month. The next meeting is Thursday, August 4, 1p.m., at the Oakland Post Newspaper Group office, 14th and Franklin, 12th floor. For more information, email Marvin X: jmarvinx@yahoo.com